"No Governmental agency is going to suggest nor advocate the use of chemicals to homeowners. You will more often than not receive "organic" solutions from county extension offices. Most of them believe that "grasscycling" or cutting at 4 inches twice a month solves all problems." That's a very broad statement. And I would think just plain wrong from what others have mentioned online. If there's any entity that knows about what fungicides work in a particular area I would think it would be the university researchers at the extension offices that run the field tests that are used in the marketing materials aimed at the pros. So they get to play with them first in a controlled manner rather than just reading the label and seeing what happens. Now, master gardeners are not the same people that run the field tests and do the research. I don't know what it takes to be a master gardener but it seems that like everything else in life, your mileage may vary. I haven't done a survey of extension offices but most things I ran across have indicated that they didn't know much about organic methods. When I mentioned I was applying corn meal and milk for the fungus the reply I received was that those were not EPA registered to treat those diseases.

Mary- Hey, that is fun to hear and what a nice surprise! You're gonna have to dig up & bring that puppy in if you want it to ripen, more than likely. With all my brugs/seedlings that I have in yard, I only got one seedpod that was open-pollinated. What is the size of the pod and what is the shape? Aurea/football-shaped pods ripen pretty quickly, like in 3 months but the long skinny or long fat one take much longer. Shawn, good to hear about your successes. I have one seedling I really like that is just so fertile- I have maybe 10 pods on it. Now, I have to see if it will hold them when I dig it up in a week or two and bring it in.

my neighbor is overrun by asian pears so i was just scrambling for recipes. yesterday a friend sent me a.p.'s in honey syrup from the Joys of Jams. it's for pts or qts. it's delicious ! so easy, and the spices are added per jar , so you can experiment with just one jar. i tried wet and dry zings from nwedibles.com 16 pts. with 8 different flavors. the skins- i dunked the pears in vinegar and water for a few minutes. didn't rinse but just put them on trays. i'm thinking the vinegar would take care of some bacteria, plus the BWB time. of course i peeled off any dark or funny spots. i left strips of the skins on, but just canned yesterday so can't tell how that works. but i did save the peelings and cores for my 1st try at making vinegar. these pears also had rough skins, and most were not quite ripe but very edible. the leftovers from the BWB i boiled for 15 min. and the skins were not an issue. in fact, i think they disappeared ! it also made a great reduction of the syrup. if you try this recipe, please let me know how it compares to NCHFP recipe, and how the skins did. i'm sure i'll be canning some next year.

My Dad was an abusive alcoholic. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was a tremendous relief when my parents divorced when I was 13 and he left. I had no contact from him after that, not that I was bothered. Then, when I was 16, I had finished school and was spending a year travelling. Since I would be passing through the city in which my Dad and his new wife lived, my mother insisted I should at least visit him for an hour or two between landing on the plane from home and boarding the ship for overseas. I didn't particularly want to but my mother was a hard person to argue with. So, he and his new wife picked me up from the airport and took me to their apartment for afternoon tea. It was awkward. I was too young to really ask the right questions. Like, why did you hit me? That said, he was so locked into lying about everything I doubt I would have got a truthful answer. New wife had some adult children from a previous relationship who were older than me, who apparently would like to have met me but were unavailable. So I had to speak with them on the telephone, again an experience I wasn't all that keen to have. They chastised me for being an ungrateful daughter: according to my Dad he had been sending me birthday and Christmas cards and gifts, money, the whole works, and not once had ungrateful me replied or sent thanks. This was more fantasy on Dad's part: I never received anything and have no reason to think that my scrupulously honest mother would have prevented me receiving anything that had been sent. I disabused them of the fantasy. Eventually our awkward afternoon tea drew to a close and they took me to my ship and I left and never saw him again. When he died some years later I reacted to the news with total indifference- he was out of my system. I think this was due to my mother insisting on our final meeting, I got to see him with more mature eyes and process my feelings about him. So, I think you might consider at least one meeting with your father.Ask him any questions that have always niggled (and there are always niggly questions after the end of any relationship). If you suspect he is being fast and loose with the truth, let him know you're not interested in hearing BS. But I do think you'd benefit from hearing him out, even if you decide afterwards never to see him again. At least then you won't have any "what ifs" that can never be resolved after his death, wondering how things might have gone if......they are the hardest things to deal with after a person dies because then there is no hope of there ever being a resolution.